Base and superstructure (Marxism)
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Base and Superstructure form a synthetic pair explicitly or implicitly common to all socialisms but due as such to Marx and Marxism where it serves to distinguish the essential basis of various social orders from various other formative and persisting social conditions.
The base is equivalent to the mode of production (MoP) and the social order enforcing it. The superstructure is the entire remainder of society, culture, technology, institutions, etc. which dialectical materialism posits as being based upon the material conditions and circumstances of production, i.e. the MoP. Critical theory and writings on the topic are mainly concerned with how the one affects and/or conditions the other.
As Marx wrote in the famous preface to his 1859 book A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy[1]:
| “ | In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter Into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production."[2] | ” |
According to Richard Middleton (1990), in Antonio Gramsci's conception or theory superstructural elements (cultural elements), what Middleton calls instances of practice, related to (and not predetermined by) economic elements through a process of articulation. |20px|20px}}
Marx's key claim is that the base determines the superstructure, although this easily simplified relationship requires some qualification:
- base refers to the entirety of productive relationships, not just to a particular economic position (the working class, for instance);
- the superstructure varies throughout history and is frequently unevenly developed across different areas of societal activity (in art and political culture, for instance);
- there is an element of reciprocity between base and superstructure — an observation that Engels made explicit by claiming that the base determined the superstructure only “in the last instance.”[3]
Theories of base and superstructure interaction have come under fire in recent Marxist criticism. Raymond Williams has been particularly vocal in this respect, critiquing the "popular" use of base and superstructure as isolated, independent entities, which he argues was not Marx and Engels' intention. He writes:
"So we have to say that when we talk of 'the base,' we are talking of a process and not a state [...] We have to revalue 'superstructure' towards a related range of cultural practices, and away from a reflected, reproduced or specifically dependent contend. And, crucially, we have to revalue 'the base' away from notion of a fixed economic or technological abstraction, and towards the specific activities of men in real social and economic relationships, containing fundamental contradictions and variations and therefore always in a state of dynamic process."[4]
[edit] See also
- Althusser
- Dialectical Materialism
- False consciousness
- Historical Materialism
- Materialism
- Reification
[edit] Notes
- ^ Marx, Karl (1977). A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
- ^ K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, with some notes by R. Rojas.
- ^ Dictionary of the Social Sciences, Article: Base and superstructure
- ^ Williams, Raymond (November-December 1973). "Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory". New Left Review (82).
[edit] References
- Calhoun, Craig (ed) Dictionary of the Social Sciences Oxford University Press, 2002
[edit] External links
- Basis und Überbau A German Political Lexicon Wiki.
- Marxist Media Theory
